I'd Follow You To The Moon
by Hannah Ellery-Ashby
Summary: Ever wondered what would happen if Courtney ran before Ali came back to the house and killed her? Well, in this story, she did...with Emily. It would help to understand this if you had read Ali's Pretty Little Lies.
1. Emily

"Em! Wake up!" I sat up in bed because I'd know that voice anywhere. Even if she'd just broken my heart and used my secrets to manipulate me.

Alison DiLaurentis.

"What? Are you OK?" I asked. I still felt protective toward Ali.

But she didn't laugh, or say something like "Easy there, _Killer." _like I expected she would. Instead she just looked around with a panicked expression on her face. "We have to get out of here. _Now."_

"What? Why?" I looked around. Maybe there was somebody following her.

"I can't explain now. We're taking a bus to the airport, and we're leaving." She looked really determined.

"Where?" I asked. Honestly, I loved Ali so much, I would follow her to the moon.

"I don't know. Anywhere. Wherever the quickest flight takes us. We'll use my dad's frequent flier miles. I've got to go to the bathroom. Get dressed while I'm gone." Ali crossed the room to my bathroom.

"Emily? What's going on?" My dad peeked his head into the room. "It's 3:00 in the morning."

"I can't sleep. I think I'm going to read a little and see if I can get back to sleep." I said, the lie slipping smoothly off my tongue I'd never been a particularly good liar, but for some reason this time it worked.

"Okay. Sleep well." My dad closed the door quietly, clearly hoping I would just fall back asleep. That happened a lot.

I hopped out of bed and pulled on my favorite jeans and pulled off my PJ shirt. Ali stepped out of the room and smiled at me. Again, I thought it would be some sort of teasing about what I liked to do in tree houses, but she didn't say anything. Just blushed. I self-consciously pulled out a long sleeved shirt from my drawer.

"Grab a sweater too. It's cold out." Ali leaned casually against my wall, as if sneaking out of the house at three in the morning was something she did every week. Well, maybe she did sometimes with her high school field hockey friends.

When I was dressed, I peered out the door of my bedroom. My dad had gone back to his room. I walked out and Ali followed me. The door was unlocked, so we just walked out.

When we got to the bus station, Ali threw her arms around me and pulled me into a hug. I thought she murmured something like "Finally I'm truly free."


	2. Courtney

"So we're really doing it?" Emily asked as we waited for the bus. "Just like we talked about?"

"Yep. Would we be here if we weren't?" I asked, watching for the bus to the Philadeplphia airport.

"Ali, I'm really concerned about you. What are you so scared of?" Em looked at me concernedly.

"It's not a what. It's a who." I answered. Honestly, I was scared of telling Em. What if she hated me forever?

Emily exhaled. "Is someone abusing you? Are you having family problems?" she pestered.

"Yes. Sister problems." Oh my god, how did that just pop out? Sister problems? I didn't want to tell her. But part of me did.

"Sister problems?" I could see the wheels turning in Emily's head. She didn't know I had a sister.

"Any moment now you're going to burst out laughing and tell me this is an early April Fool's joke, right? Cuz you _don't have a sister, Ali._" She seemed pretty convinced of it, too.

"Actually, Em, I do." I took a deep breath and prepared to tell her everything. "A twin sister. And my name's not really Ali. It's Courtney."

Emily just sat there quietly after I told her everything. How Real Ali had threatened me and told me that terrible things would happen if I didn't do exactly what I wanted. How she'd gotten the psychologists to think I had paranoid schizophrenia. And how at the beginning of sixth grade, I'd switched with her. Gotten back my life. Well, not exactly my life. Her life. And how she was threatening me now. Telling me to say my last goodbyes.

"I…don't believe you." She buried her head in her hands. "It can't be true!" And as if this was her best reason, she burst out, "No one would want to hurt you!"

I let out a harsh laugh. "That's your best reason for why it can't be true?"

She hung her head. "I guess."

"Remember that day when I had that halter top on, and when you guys saw me again, I didn't? And when my mom was yelling at me because I threw my hockey clothes in with the delicates?' I made air quotes around "I" and "me because I threw my hockey clothes in with the delicates". "Well, it wasn't because I threw my hockey clothes in with the delicates again. And it wasn't me wearing that halter top. It was Ali pretending to be, and Ali was the person my mom was yelling at."

"And you promise this is really true?" Emily asked. I nodded.

My cell phone started ringing. _Oh no. Are my parents calling me? Do they have a tracker on here? _I picked it up.

"So, _Courtney, _you decided to run." It wasn't my parent's voice on the other side of the phone. It was Ali's.

"Yeah," I tried to make my voice not shake. I was so scared of this girl, the one who'd convinced everyone I was crazy, when she was the crazy one. "You told me to say my last goodbyes. So I'm saying goodbye to you. Feel free to reclaim your life. But you know you'll probably go back to the Preserve. The more you tell them you're Ali, the less they'll believe you."

"So it's true then," Emily muttered. "I don't suppose even you would make up that elaborate of a prank."

"Hey!" I nudged her. "Why so suspicious?"

Emily cracked a smile. "Um, cuz you didn't tell me for two years?"

There was a sound of a bus rolling into the bus stop. The front of it flashed PHILADELPHIA AIRPORT. I stood up and offered Emily my hand. "You ready?"

Emily grabbed my hand and stood up, not letting go of it immediately. "Yeah. Let's go."


	3. Emily 2

"Are you sure you girls are old enough to travel alone?" The bus driver looks at us concernedly. "You look young." I'm about to freak out and cry when Ali- no, Courtney, I keep on messing up, flips her hair, looks him straight in the eye, tilts her head to the side and asks "Would you like to see our driver's liscences?"

He turns away from her, clearly seeming embarrassed. "God, short girl problems, huh Em?" Courtney says to me with a playful wink. "Yeah," I say back with a laugh.

We walk to the back of the bus and I sit down. Courtney sits next to me. There's no one else on the bus. That actually isn't surprising, seeing as it's something like four in the morning. "You seriously think no one will look for us?" I whisper to her. She puts a finger to her lips and points at the bus driver, but I point to the glass divider. He can't hear us.

"I'm sure people will look for us," Courtney says. "But they won't be able to find us."

* * *

Later in the bus ride, Courtney has fallen asleep, her head on my shoulder. I'm sure it's a complete accident- she hasn't wanted to touch me ever since I kissed her in the treehouse.

She's got her hand on top of an envelope. I wonder if it was a letter she was going to send to her parents but decided not to, or something like that. But when I lean over closer, I see the bubbly writing reads EMILY.

That's pretty much an open invitation to read it, I surmise, because if she didn't want me to read it she probably wouldn't address it to me. But it feels like cheating to read it while she's asleep. I slowly pull it out from underneath her hand and slice open the envelope with my fingernail and slide the note out.

_Dear Em,_

_I'm sorry how horrible I've been to you lately. I completely understand if you'd hate me for blackmailing you about your secrets and not telling you the biggest secret of mine. I get that you'd hate me. But for some reason you still seem to love me. __To quote Walt Whitman "I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends." Em, you're my best friend. You're the one who I feel like I can talk to and be myself with. That's why I asked you to come with me. But there's also another reason._

_I've thought about what happened in the tree house for a few weeks now, and I realize how close we are, and how much I really care about you. I wouldn't go as far as to say as I love you, but I definitely think I have some feelings for you._

_I completely understand if you want to turn around, go back home and leave me, because I can probably do this myself. But I don't want you to leave me, Killer._

_-Courtney DayDiLaurentis (That's my full name. Our parents removed the Day part so our old neighbors wouldn't find us after we moved.)_

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. She doesn't hate me. She likes me. She trusts me the most of our friends, enough to tell me about her crazy sister. She says she has feelings for me!_  
_

"I forgive you," I whisper, even though I know she's asleep and can't hear me. "I forgive you...Courtney."


	4. Courtney 2

_Note to reader: I'm taking some liberties with Beth, Emily's older sister's age, it doesn't say how old she is in the book but in Ali's Pretty Little Lies it doesn't say she lives with Emily so I'm saying that she's in college and has just gotten out for the summer. :) If anyone knows from an interview or something, please tell me._

"Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Airport!" the bus driver calls out, and I jolt awake. Emily's fallen asleep, and she's clutching a piece of paper tight in her hand. I lean over and talk into her ear. "Boo!"

Emily's eyes snap open and she claps a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "Getting up, getting up," She smiles at me. "We're here?"

"Yeah," I say as I grab my bag. "Where to?" I ask as I put the money in the bus driver's hand.

"I don't know." Emily bites her nail as we get off the bus. People are swarming all around the bus station and I feel the sense of panic that I first got when I entered the Preserve. But this time it's different. I'm not getting jailed. I'm getting freed.

Without even really thinking about it, I grab Emily's hand and hold on tight. I can't supress the panic that's growing in my stomach. "What are we going to do?"

Emily looks at me. "You didn't plan?"

"My sister just got home tonight and I found her bobby pin on my pillow. _Of course _I didn't plan- I just ran." I answer. "I didn't know what she was going to do...but she'd already told me to say my goodbyes."

"Oh my God." Emily claps her hand over her mouth. "Do you think she was going to _kill _you?"

I nod. "You see why I had to run."

"Wait..." Emily looks like she has an idea. "My sister Beth has an apartment a few miles from here. She'd be home now- it's summer break and her college let out for break a few days ago."

"Beth?" I make a bit of a face. "Didn't you always say she was really boring and always followed rules? She'd be sure to tell your mom and dad and then I'd be right back in the same house with my murderous twin!"

"Maybe if I explain..." Emily looks doubtful. Then it looks like she got an idea. "Oh. Carolyn and Jason are at a summer program for Carolyn's college, and our parents told us to take the bus and stay there for today and tomorrow because they knew she'd understand, and they needed to drop them off and were going to stay a night because they'd be so late and we needed someone to take care of us but they couldn't find babysitters." She smiles devilishly. "My parents are _always _dumping me on her. It's not unlike them at all."

"No, Jason's going to Yale..." Then I understand. "It WORKS! Perfect! And at the end of the two days when she wonders why our parents aren't here yet we'll tell her the truth. So what's your sister's adress?"

Emily tells me, and I copy it down on my iPhone and Google Map it. "10 miles from here- we're gonna have to call a taxi."

"Do we have enough money for it?" she asks nervously.

"Credit cards are great, aren't they?" I flash mine. Then I walk over to the edge of the sidewalk, cutting through all the others waiting, and wave my hand. A driver catches sight and pulls his taxi up to the curb.


	5. Back at the DiLaurentis House(Ali's POV)

The next morning, Alison DiLaurentis- the real one- woke up in her own bedroom and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Courtney was really gone forever. All Ali had ever wanted was the life she deserved. The life Courtney had stolen.

Most people would probably call her insane. She preferred "in control". She'd pretend to be asleep when her parents came knocking on her door. Then when they told her that "Ali" was missing, she'd freak out. What? She's on the loose? I told you guys not to let her out!

Except what Ali didn't know was that there was a loophole in her plan.

"Courtney?" her mother called, peering through the door. "What are you doing in Ali's bedroom, honey?"

Ali peeked out from under the covers. "What? This is my bedroom. I'm Ali."

She frantically looked around for the A ring that she'd stolen from Courtney when she was washing the dishes. But it looked like Courtney had stolen it back overnight. Now, instead of an A ring, a C ring gleamed on the dresser.

"Courtney..." Jessica DiLaurentis sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Ali's gone."

"You mean Courtney? I told you guys she'd leave as soon as she could! She's probably in California by now!" Ali tried her best to make her voice sound panicked. "And please don't call me Courtney. It's really condescending."

"Courtney." Her mother's voice became stern. "Get dressed and come downstairs."

Ali rolled her eyes and got dressed. At least she still had her sister's The Jenna Thing bracelet.

Ali walked down the stairs and into the living room. There were three girls sitting there. But where was the other one? The loser bisexual swimmer? Emily?

"Ali!" Hana Marin ran forward and hugged Ali. "Where were you? Your mom called us over and we were so worried!" Spencer and Aria hung back, as if they weren't exactly sure they were happy that "Ali" had been found.

"Hana. Step back. She's dangerous." Mr. DiLaurentis snapped. Hana, confused, sat back on the couch with the other girls.

"Dangerous? What are you talking about?" Ali acted like she though her parents were insane. "And where's Emily? Where's Courtney?"

"Girls," Mr. DiLaurentis told Aria, Spencer, and Hana. "This is not your friend. This is Courtney."

"You TOLD them?" Ali turned on her parents, anger painted on her face. "WHY? And I'm ALI!" she yelled, as an afterthought."

"What did you do to her?" Hana looked furious. "What did you do to Ali?"

Ali panicked. She didn't think. She ran to the door. But as soon as she opened it, Darren Wilden grabbed her. She knew his name because he was one of the gazebo workers.

"Darren, get her into the car." Mrs. DiLaurentis instructed him. "We're bringing her back to the Preserve."


End file.
